The most astonishing, not to say alarming, feature of diis growth of world paper currency and reduction in the ratio of gold reserve thereto, occurs in the development of the year following the war. It was, of course, necessary that the governments while participating in the war should largely increase their quantities of currency, and they did, as is shown from the fact that the paper currency of the 23 countries in question jutnped from $6,109,000,000 in July 1914 to $37,284000,000 at the end of the war, November 1918; though why it should have been necessary to add another $11,000,000, 000 in the year following the close of the war and bring the grand total of December 1919 up to $48,362,000,M0 is difficult to understand, especially when we realize that none of this in crease of $11,000,000,000 in the 13 months following the Armistice included any of the $34,000,000,000 of paper issued by the Bol sheviki government from its establishment late in 1917 to the end of 1919, and which is described by persons familiar with conditions in Bolshevik Russia as ((having no gold backing and therefore absolutely valueless.*
serve in the 30 principal countries of the world in 1914, 1918 and 1919. These figures include in most cases only the currency issues and gold reserve of the great State Banks, such as the Bank of France, the Bank of Italy, the Imperial Bank of Germany. the Austro-Hungarian 13anlc, the National Bank of Belgium and the Swiss National Bank; though the figures with refer ence to Great Britain include not only thOSe of the Bank of England but the 4Currency Notes Accoune whic.h was separately stated by the government from the early part of the war period downward. The figures presented in this table are, therefore, exclusive in most instances of the comparatively small amounts of paper currency represented by other banks of issue, though this statement applies only to those coun tries having the great banking organization of the paper currency in each country is based upon the pre-war value of the currencies of the respective countries.